Over the past 10 years, The Apprentice Academy have placed over 1000 school and college leavers with employers offering great apprenticeship opportunities within Greater Manchester. But for us, it’s not all about numbers! We love to hear about success stories, and discover just how much impact an apprentice can have within a business.
Brother are one of many well-known, high profile companies that have partnered with us over the last few years to recruit and train their young talent. They offer great support and prospects for their apprentices, many of who are now in management or specialist positions. This year, the technology company have hired two more business administration apprentices via our Future Talent programme and they have been doing really well!
Lewis Johnstone – a real role model employee
Lewis is one of the business administration apprentices at Brother. Within his first three months, he is already demonstrating key skills that the apprenticeship is designed to develop and has made a fantastic impression on the management at the company.
He is growing in confidence, taking responsibility and always looking to better himself. Lewis represents what apprenticeships are all about.
Lewis’s manager Andy Johnson had the following comments:
“Lewis has made a real impact on the team and business as a whole, he’s an extremely likeable and grounded guy, he understands it’s a big step up from school and is following all internal policies and procedures perfectly – a real role model employee.”
Growing in confidence
“He’s growing in confidence and is not shy to put himself out of his comfort zone – a couple of examples of this is presenting in front of senior sales managers and also taking part in solutions videos which are for external customers to use – he was confident enough to film in front of a full video production company.”
Presenting can be intimidating, but the fact that he is able to do this in front of senior managers is fantastic. Our administration apprentices are required to deliver presentations as part of their apprenticeship.
Taking responsibility
“Lewis is actively using solutions based thinking by redeveloping a product website page which now focuses on where to use the device rather than listing speeds and feeds, this is now live for all our customers to view.”
Being proactive with learning
“Where Lewis doesn’t understand policies and procedures he is actively booking meetings with the relevant mangers so that he can learn more about this area – examples of this is collecting of money from customers and customer complaints.”
Teamworking
“Lewis has integrated into the team and the wider business perfectly and I couldn’t be more happier to be working alongside him.”
You can’t get much better praise from a manager than that! This success mirrors past apprentices success at Brother, who offer young people fantastic apprenticeship experiences. One example being Gemma Crozier, who progressed onto completing her level 3 Management Diploma after previously completing a similar programme to Lewis.
Overall, it is fantastic to see an apprentice settling in so well at a great company like Brother, it really shows the value of both hiring an apprentice from an employer perspective and becoming an apprentice from a learners perspective. Well done and best of luck in the future, Lewis!
Learn about Brother UK here.
Click here to hire an apprentice.